Before the accident Rod bowed out and then it was going to be a trio and we were going to get somebody else. It wasn’t going to be Back, Bogert & Appice, it was going to be a band called Cactus with Rod Stewart singing. We rehearsed at our manager’s rehearsal place, and just worked out all the stuff for the first album, it was very easy. Jim McCarty was found through a friend of ours, Duane Hitchings, he was playing with the Buddy Miles Express and he played with Mitch Ryder so he was a definite candidate for Cactus and once we got Jimmy, he suggested Rusty who was with the Amboy Dukes. And we loved it, we loved playing with Cactus. It was an awesome band, it was hard rocking, very fast band. Jeff got in car accident in 1969 and had to take a year and a half off, me and Tim didn’t want to wait around so we put together our own band called Cactus with Jim McCarty and Rusty Day. But in those days it was cool and hip to break up, you had Blind Faith break up, made a super group, so, that’s what our plan was. We actually should have just gone on and done a solo thing and come back to the Fudge. So probably blame it on me and Tim Bogert. The band broke up because when Tim and I wanted to play some rocking kind of music with some more guitar, we were planning on putting a band together with Jeff Beck, so that’s pretty much why we broke up, you know, we’d been together for like four years and we were just ready to move on to something different. Appice: “Yes we got tight pretty quick, Tim and I, we both liked the same kind of music, r’n’b, James Brown, Motown, all of that, so yes we got right pretty quick. I used to throw my sticks around and beat the heck out of the drums and all that stuff”.Īfter the break up of Vanilla Fudge, Appice and Bogert had intended to work with Jeff Beck, but that project was put on hold due to a car accident putting Back out of action for a while. So I just started using the jazz Big Band tuning that my drum teacher taught me, so it was intentional but it wasn’t intentional, it was more accidental.I was playing loud and heavy because I couldn’t be heard with the amplification being used. When I interviewed him for Record Collector Magazine a few moons ago, he said of his style: “I grew up playing jazz, and I played rock also. This set collects those four albums, three of which have bonus tracks, and two live shows, each spread over two discs each.Īppice is considered the father of heavy metal drumming, influencing many. They signed to Atco and released four albums before splitting. In fact, many would argue that Cactus should have made the band as big as Led Zeppelin.CACTUS Evil Is Going On: The Atco albums 1970-1972 (8CD box) Cherry RedĪnother box that does what is says on the tin – and done wonderfully it is too.Ĭactus were an American hard rock band with heavy blues leanings, formed in 1969 by drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert, both formerly of Vanilla Fudge. The entire album has a dirty, loose-limbed, live-in-the-studio feel, and it could be the best example of early-’70s, go-for-broke rock ’n’ roll you likely ever hear. The band ignite a billowing fire on the blues classic “Parchment Farm,” then burn down Willie Dixon’s “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” and refuse to put out the flames until the last scream on the strutting finale “Feels So Good.” In between, there’s a moment of tenderness (“My Lady from South of Detroit”) and some biker-ready rock ’n’ roll (“Let Me Swim”) that taught Guns N’ Roses a lesson or two. Besides drumming legend Carmine Appice, bassist Tim Bogart (both from Vanilla Fudge), and ex–Amboy Duke shouter Rusty Day (who could howl better than any other white guy weaned on Delta blues), this self-titled 1970 debut album boasted godhead guitar shredder Jimmy McCarty (Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Buddy Miles Express). For a bunch of proto-metal stoner pioneers, Cactus never got their due, even as a supergroup.
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